You're STRONG!!

One of the things that really motivates me is the voices in my head. No, not those crazy ones, but those positive messages that you latch onto when you are doing a workout video (i.e, Jillian Michaels saying "But you're STRONG!" which is one of my favorites) or even just the things you say to yourself to keep the feet steadily pushing forward.

I had a bad workout week last week. Nothing was getting me motivated. The voices were telling me to watch tv, read another chapter in my book, stare at Facebook for 10 more minutes. I ate too much, I slacked off, nothing was really keeping me on task when it came to my workouts. I like to workout at night, so I was partially blaming it on Andrew being at his dad's for spring break, leaving me less likely to run at night. I like to run the streets, but won't do it alone at night anymore. Of course the treadmill was available, but I have to face up to it and be honest. I was just in a funk.

Sunday rolled around and it had been 4 days since I'd gotten any sort of run in - good or bad. I crawled out of bed, ate my cereal, had a cup of tea, stalled, stalled, checked email, FB and the depressing news of the world, stalled some more, and then finally went upstairs and put my running clothes on, pumped up the jogger stroller tires, chose a child at random (since they both weigh about the same) and while my husband looked at me in astonishment (and you are wondering if I will ever end this run-on sentence), I loaded up Laura, selected my playlist on my ipod, inserted my earphones and started off...

I had no idea where I would run to, but once I got going, reacclimated myself to running with the jogger (something I haven't done in, oh, let's see, Forever!), I decided to just go for it. Five miles. The great thing about running streets is that once you make that decision to turn a certain direction away from home, you are stuck. You're going to have to get back somehow. It was a slow haul - Laura needed snacks, juice, and just an occasional high-five to her precious little hand sticking through the shade cover. I needed to double-knot my running shoes (clever stall tactic if I do say so myself), and well, that was the only break I took. It took me 51:49 to run the 5 mile route. I was stoked! Felt like a new woman and had a totally productive day.

Tonight, I wanted to run again. I was able to pry the Playstation controller out of Andrew's hand and get him to go for a run with me. Okay, he's always totally willing to go. For him, runs with me are merely jogs, easy peasy. We did the same route that I ran yesterday... in 41:28!!! That's a full TEN minutes faster!

I told Andrew, "This may be fuzzy math, but same route minus Laura minus the jogger plus You equals a ten minute faster finish! You're hired!!" That's a 8:17/mile pace... roughly 24min 5K! That's awesome!!

I keep saying it, but it's still true. It's been years since I've been this fit, this strong, and I feel really good. So last week begone... I'd like to get 4 more runs in this week, and then it's only 11 days until the Mud Run!

I am definitely going to sign up for the OC Marathon 5K in May -- if only to see how many minutes I can shave off my last 5K time! 24:00? It's definitely a reachable goal.

Because I'm STRONG!! And I'm only going to get stronger.